Rebecca Swanner, a workplace sector leader at HED, and her team aren’t just asking how AI is changing the way we work, they’re exploring what that actually means for the physical spaces we design.
Here’s what their national research study found. Spaces for collaboration? Actually working fine. But focus and restoration are the two things that matter most as AI shifts humans toward higher-cognitive-load work and are critically underserved. Only 15% of respondents felt restoration was properly supported in their workplace. And there’s a massive disconnect between what leadership thinks the office is for and what employees actually need. That gap is costing organizations more than they realize in burnout, resistance, and lost innovation.
Rebecca walks us through the research, the design implications, the emerging role of responsive and wearable tech in the workplace, and what she calls the potential “death of the open office.”
Rebecca also makes the case that the most important metric shift leaders can make right now is moving from occupancy to outcomes, and what that looks like in practice when you’re designing spaces from scratch or recalibrating what you have.
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Credits:
Created & Directed By Bob Fox
Produced By Work Design Studios
